This invention relates to apparatus and methods for managing electronic documents over open networks, such as the Internet, to permit users to store, retrieve, and collaboratively manipulate files.
Document management systems are known that permit multiple users to store and retrieve electronic documents on a closed client/server architecture network, such as a local area network or wide area network. These previously known document management systems, such as DOCSFusion, available from PCDOCS, Inc., Toronto, Ontario, Canada and EDMS 98, available from Documentum, Inc., Pleasanton, Calif., require the presence of a client application on each node of the network that is to access and manipulate files.
With the recent rapid expansion of the Internet, the opportunity for collaborative efforts has increased many fold, as colleagues scattered around the world can rapidly transmit files for review and revision using electronic mail facilities. While electronic mail systems are useful for transmitting relatively small files on the Internet, however, large documents often are too large to be handled by typical message transfer systems, and can overburden a network. Large documents also may exceed the available storage at a recipient""s site, thus preventing a recipient from storing a received document. Electronic mail systems used on open systems, such as the Internet, also do not generally address security concerns, or permit a transmission to be tracked, as is possible with a physical document delivery service (e.g., courier).
Smith U.S. Pat. No. 5,790,790 describes an Internet electronic document delivery system, wherein an e-mail message contains a direct reference (i.e., a Uniform Resource Locator or xe2x80x9cURLxe2x80x9d) to an electronic document stored on a server. When a recipient receives the e-mail message, the direct reference is used to access the document. A drawback of the system described in that patent, is that the sending computer must include a specialized client application for interacting with the server. The system described in that patent also lacks the kinds of transaction logging and accounting functions needed to provide a useful document management system.
The POSTA(copyright) system, offered by Tumbleweed Software Corporation, Redwood City, Calif., overcomes some of the drawbacks of the system described in the foregoing patent. For example, the POSTA(copyright) system eliminates the need for specialized client software for basic document delivery operations, and permits the use of a previously known web browser, such as Internet Explorer 4.0(copyright), available from Microsoft Corp., Redmond, Wash., or Netscape Navigator(copyright), Netscape Corporation, Mountain View, Calif. That commercial system also eliminates use of the direct reference in the e-mail message, instead providing a URL for a webpage that provides the user with several options for document delivery. The system provides none of the capabilities normally associated with a document management system.
Higley U.S. Pat. No. 5,790,793, like the foregoing Smith patent, also describes an Internet electronic document delivery system wherein an e-mail message includes a URL reference to a document stored in a server. This system described in this patent also requires the use of a specialized client application, and is limited to an electronic document delivery service.
While it is known in the art to use an Internet web browser to download an electronic document from a website, using, for example, Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (xe2x80x9cHTTPxe2x80x9d) or File Transfer Protocol (xe2x80x9cFTPxe2x80x9d), there currently do not exist document management systems that permit such a file to be modified by a user, and uploaded to the system for further collaborative retrieval and modification by others.
In view of the foregoing it would be desirable to provide a document management system and methods that permit electronic documents to be made available for use on open systems, such as the Internet, and to be accessed using a previously known web browserxe2x80x94without the need for a specialized client application.
It also would be desirable to provide an Internet-based document management system and methods that permit users to access a plurality of services supported by a common Internet-based database, including document storage, collaborative file sharing and workflow, document delivery and document distribution.
It further would be desirable to provide an Internet-based document management system and methods that permit users to selectively or automatically filter electronic documents during storage to and/or retrieval from, an Internet-based storage site.
It still further would be desirable to provide an Internet-based document management system and methods that permit users to collaboratively store, retrieve, modify and then return an electronic document to an Internet-based storage site.
It yet further would be desirable to provide an Internet-based document management system and methods that enable the transaction logging and accounting functions needed for multi-user collaborative electronic document manipulation, for example, so that revisions to a document may be tracked.
It also would be desirable to provide an Internet-based document management system and methods that enable tracking of transactions performed on a document for billing purposes, and which provide needed access-control protocols, for example, so that specific users"" privileges with respect to a document may be defined.
In view of the foregoing, it is an object of this invention to provide a document management system and methods that permit electronic documents to be made available for use on open systems, such as the Internet, and to be accessed using previously known web browserxe2x80x94without the need for a specialized client application.
It also is an object of the present invention to-provide an Internet-based document management system and methods that permit users to access a plurality of services supported by a common Internet-based database, including document storage, collaborative file sharing and workflow, document delivery and document distribution.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an Internet-based document management system and methods that permit users to selectively or automatically filter electronic documents during storage to and/or retrieval from, an Internet-based storage site.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an Internet-based document management system and methods that permit users to collaboratively store, retrieve, modify and then return an electronic document to an Internet-based storage site.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an Internet-based document management system and methods that enable the transaction logging and accounting capabilities needed for multi-user collaborative electronic document manipulation, for example, so that revisions to a document may be tracked.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide an Internet-based document management system and methods that enable tracking of transactions performed on a document for billing purposes, and which provide needed access-control protocols, for example, so that specific users"" privileges with respect to a document may be defined.
These and other objects of the present invention are accomplished by providing an Internet-based document management system and methods wherein an electronic document may be stored on an Internet-accessible server and accessed using a previously known web browser, downloaded for review or manipulation, and then returned to the server for access by further users. In.accordance with the principles of the present invention, the server is programmed with several routines that perform numerous functions, referred to hereinafter as xe2x80x9cservices,xe2x80x9d that provide a full-featured document management system.
In a preferred embodiment, the document management system is programmed to provide a plurality of services supported by a common database and document store. These services preferably include storage and retrieval services to and from an Internet-based storage site, an electronic document delivery service, a collaborative file sharing service and a workflow service, and a document distribution service. The server also preferably is programmed to perform a security function, to verify or define a requestor""s ability to access an electronic document, a filtering function that performs selective or automatic filtering of documents during storage to and/or retrieval from the storage site, and accounting functions that enable detailed accounting of, for example, usage of storage on the server, number of accesses, etc. In addition, the system may permit multiple service providers to utilize common document management services of a server, while appearing to end-users as separate dedicated websites.